Book Illuminates Immediate Years After Spanish Conquest of Mexico

“Dawn at Tepeyac” by Dexter Allen —a book that took seven years to write— fuses literary concepts with historical facts and intellectually acceptable understandings of apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

(PR NewsChannel) / April 19, 2012 / ENSENADA, Mexico/ In “Dawn at Tepeyac” (ISBN 146801580X), Dexter Allen retells the crucial moments of stagnation and despair immediately following the Spanish conquest of Mexico, a catastrophe barely averted by the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe on a mountain above the lake cities in December of 1531. Through the eyes and minds of the Chichimec St. Juan Diego and the first bishop of Mexico, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, the reader enters into the tumultuous and almost hopeless situation of the conquered and the conquerors alike, and comes away with an understanding and love of the indigenous cultures as well as sympathy for the Spanish conqueror.

Allen’s carefully crafted book is a recounting of how a continuum was re-established to allow the indigenous people to survive, giving the reader a personal glimpse into the goodwill and humanity within the brutal and violent confrontations of radically opposed cultures.

Allen asserts that this cross-genre novel is one of the only works on the subject of post-conquest Mexico that combines literary concerns, historical facts and an intellectually acceptable understanding of the apparitions, correlating the seemingly antagonistic critiques.

A mix of historical fact, creative interpretation and imaginative description and dialogue, “Dawn at Tepeyac” recreates the feelings and thoughts of the inhabitants of Mexico, as well as considerations of philosophical and theological concepts in context.

This is a sincere, in-depth approach to a controversial and interesting subject. Allen wants his readers to share his feeling and appreciation for 16th-century Mexico, and to have an idea of the Aztec thought-world. “They were definitely not primitives,” says Allen.

“Dawn at Tepeyac” is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.

About the Author: Dexter Allen has published a trilogy of novels on pre-conquest Mexico. He has lived in various parts of the world, in Tangier and Seville, and in villages of indigenous people in Mexico and Guatemala. He has spent extended periods of time in Benedictine monasteries. Allen is readying his next work, a historical fiction novel, on the last day of life of George Armstrong Custer. Translated in Spanish, “Dawn at Tepeyac” is “Amanecer en Tepeyac.”